The Role of Research in Teachers' Work: Narratives of Classroom Action Research

152 Pages·2018·0.931 MB·English

by  Lesley Scanlon

The Role of Research
in Teachers’ Work
In the debate regarding what constitutes teachers’ work, academics and
bureaucrats continue to speak for teachers, with teachers’ voices rarely heard
and not accorded equal recognition. T he Role of Research in Teachers’ Work
addresses this imbalance by privileging teachers’ voices as they narrate their
experiences of engaging in systematic inquiry. The book embeds the teacher
narratives within the scholarly debates about the nature of knowledge and the
nature of professional practice.
Scanlon examines the knowledge teachers create through their research and
how that knowledge is perceived by others within the school community. This
book can be read as a companion volume to Scanlon’s 2015 Routledge
publication My School, or as a standalone exploration of teachers’ own narratives
of engaging in action research. Together, these two books are unique in
contemporary writing on schools, representing one of the only comprehensive
longitudinal studies of a low socioeconomic secondary school from the
perspective of those who learn and teach therein.
This book enables teachers to be part of the scholarly conversation about
their work and the place of research in that work. As such, it should be essential
reading for academics, teacher educators and postgraduates in the fi eld of
education. It should also be of interest to policymakers and teachers.
Lesley Scanlon is an Honorary Senior Lecturer in the School of Education and
Social Work at the University of Sydney, Australia.
Routledge Research in Education
This series aims to present the latest research from right across the fi eld of
education. It is not confi ned to any particular area or school of thought and
seeks to provide coverage of a broad range of topics, theories and issues from
around the world.
Children Writing Poems
Poetic Voices in and out of School
Janine Certo
Lectio Divina as Contemplative Pedagogy
Re-appropriating Monastic Practice for the Humanities
Mary Keator
Innovations as Symbols in Higher Education
J. David Johnson
Blended Basic Language Courses
Design, Pedagogy, and Implementation
Hope M. Anderson
Bourgeois Ideology and Education
Subversion Through Pedagogy
Steven Snow
Representing the Middle East and Africa in Social Studies Education
Teacher Discourse and Otherness
Daniel Osborn
The Role of Research in Teachers’ Work
Narratives of Classroom Action Research
Lesley Scanlon
For a complete list of titles in this series, please visit www.routledge.com/
Routledge-Research-in-Education/book-series/SE0393
The Role of Research
in Teachers’ Work
Narratives of Classroom
Action Research
Lesley Scanlon
First published 2018
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2018 Lesley Scanlon
The right of Lesley Scanlon to be identifi ed as author of this work
has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identifi cation and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Scanlon, Lesley, author.
Title: The role of research in teachers’ work : narratives of classroom
action research / Lesley Scanlon.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2018. |
Series: Routledge research in education
Identifi ers: LCCN 2017049534 (print) | LCCN 2017059471 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781138701267 (hardback) | ISBN 9781315204154 (ebk)
Subjects: LCSH: Action research in education.
Classifi cation: LCC LB1028.24 (ebook) | LCC LB1028.24 .S44
2018 (print) | DDC 370.72—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017049534
ISBN: 978-1-138-70126-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-20415-4 (ebk)
Typeset in Galliard
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
This book is dedicated to Josie, Gabriel,
Ian and Michelene

Contents
Acknowledgements viii
Introduction: why this book, now? 1
1 The nature of educational knowledge 13
2 The nature of teachers’ work 24
3 Answering the action research ‘call to adventure’ 42
4 Preparing for the research journey 54
5 Conducting the research 69
6 Sharing the research fi ndings 85
7 From action research to whole school initiative:
a case study 104
8 Impact and implications of the research 127
Index 141
Acknowledgements
This book was made possible through the policy enactment of the principal of
Grange High School and his willingness to construct teachers’ work differently
by initiating and supporting action research. It could not have been written had
not the teachers, who narrate their action research in the book, accepted the
principal’s ‘call to adventure’ and incorporated action research into their increas-
ingly busy teaching days. The teachers’ refl ective voices were captured in Ann’s
skilfully conducted interviews. Most importantly, the book would not have
reached its conclusion but for Gabriel’s continued support and insightful edito-
rial comments. My thanks.
Introduction
Why this book, now?
The aim of this book is to explore the role of research in teachers’ work through
the action research narratives of a group of teachers from Grange High School,
a low socioeconomic school in regional Australia. The extent to which research
should be incorporated into constructs of teachers’ work is an ongoing century-
old, unresolved debate. The debate involves complex epistemological issues
about the nature of knowledge, who produces it and where it is produced, and
ontological issues of what constitutes professional identity. In this debate aca-
demics, researchers and bureaucrats continue to speak for teachers, with teachers’
voices rarely heard and certainly not accorded equal recognition when they are.
In this book it is teachers’ voices that are privileged as they themselves tell us
about their systematic classroom research; the process of becoming researchers;
the establishment of collaborative relationships with their research partner; and
the impact of research on their identity as teachers, on their students, on student
outcomes, on their pedagogical practices and on their colleagues. In this way
the book opens the work of the teacher-researchers at Grange to scrutiny by
the research community and by so doing includes teachers in the scholarly
conversations about not only their work but the place of research in that work.
The book is timely as recent comments by academics indicate the ongoing
nature of the debates on the essence of teachers’ work and the role of systematic
inquiry in this work. The traditional construct of teachers’ work as classroom-
based, face-to-face teaching is still widely accepted and was acknowledged by
Andreas Schleicher (Division Head of the OECD Programme for International
Student Assessment) when he commented that Australian teachers are defi ned
‘more or less’ by the number of hours of face-to-face teaching that constitutes
their work, adding: ‘We treat teachers as interchangeable widgets on the frontline –
they are just there to implement prefabricated knowledge’ (B agshaw 2016 ).
In 2017 Schleicher again drew attention to the work of Australian teachers,
noting that they teach a greater number of hours than their Asian counterparts
and therefore have little time for reviewing and analysing lessons or for profes-
sional development (M unro 2017) . Recent Australian research reported in the
Sydney Morning Herald ( Singhai 2017, p. 3) also noted that Australian teachers
teach more hours than do teachers in Finland, where primary teachers teach
3794 hours per year compared with their Australian counterparts, who teach